To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too.
-- Walt Whitman
No stranger to the bar scene of his own era, the Bard of Brooklyn would love the crowd at Chicago's Green Mill Lounge. Every Sunday night it's standing room only in this gritty neighborhood tavern. The audience is there for the weekly "slam," a literary version of The Gong Show at which amateur poets compete for small cash prizes and the much richer reward of having their work heard by an enthusiastic public. The poetic abilities of many contestants may be open to debate, but the audience is...
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